


Chloe Kamski, (ex)CEO

by cyndrat



Series: Detroit: Reverse Roles [5]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Android Hank Anderson, Chloe is awesome, Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900 are Siblings, CyberLife (Detroit: Become Human), CyberLife is Rude, Gen, Human Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Human Original Chloe | RT600, Human Upgraded Connor | RK900, Politics, Politics Suck, Post-Canon, Post-Game(s), Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Role Reversal, does not mean everything is sunshine and rainbows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 05:25:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16361693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyndrat/pseuds/cyndrat
Summary: Chloe Kamski's creations and company took the world by storm in 2018; since then, the company has left its founder to fade away in a luxurious home out of the city where she doesn't need to interact with stupid, annoying humans anymore.She'll make an exception for a few people though.//not a Chloe POV fic\\





	1. (pre) <Meet Kamski>

**Author's Note:**

> continuing the slice-of-life pieces! in that this is a short exchange that takes place before Connor and Hank go to Kamski's house during the deviancy investigation. the only connection to ch2 is the characters - seriously, I just shoved these two together because Chloe

"Hey Nines," Connor calls out, grabbing his jacket and pulling it on. He turns until he sees his brother, stepping out of the breakroom with a cup of coffee in his hand and a curious-suspicious look on his face. "We're going to see Kamski." Hank is waiting near the door, looking confused, so Connor continues shoving keys and stuff into his pockets then starts to move.

"Hm," Nines says, making an admirable effort at indifference. Connor can see the quirk in his eyebrow though, the slight lift of a corner of his mouth.

"Got any insults to throw?"

Nines rolls his eyes, clearly upholding the general station's understanding that Connor is the one who jumps on any chance to rile up the eccentric billionaire. "You can remind her that I'm still waiting," he suggests as he walks across the bullpen to his desk. "It's been her turn for eleven days now. I have to wonder if her well of cryptic quips has dried up."

Connor smirks, coming close enough to clap a hand on Nines' shoulder. "I'll be sure to let her know how you feel. Wish us luck." He strides away, heading for Hank so the android knows they're leaving now. Nines scoffs. They might need a little luck actually, if they're going to get any real answers out of the woman.

He reaches Hank then leads the way out of the station, tugging car keys from a pocket.

The android remains quiet, following to the old car without a word but Connor suspects he's got something to say or ask. He waits until they're both in the car, seatbelts buckled and heaters on, before he prompts Hank though. "What's up?"

"What do you mean?"

Alllright, they've done this back and forth before, 'what'-'what'-'what'-'what'-cue a frustrated groan and Connor giving up because damn androids does there have to be a better reason- and he isn't going to let it go that way again. "Your mood ring's flickering, what is it you wanna ask?"

Hank is silent for just a moment while Connor pulls out of the parking lot and onto the street, like he's deciding what words he needs or something. "You know Ms. Kamski?"

"Yeah, about as much as anyone else knows her," Connor answers with a brief laugh. That's certainly how it feels.

"Your discussion with RK indicates some level of a personal relationship with her, though?"

Connor rolls his eyes. "Gold star to the robot," he grumbles. "Yeah, I guess so. She's our cousin, though that seems to mean fuck all most of the time."

"Ah," Hank says. It doesn't sound like he understands, but whatever.


	2. CyberLife 'requests'...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've read a few different fics that deal with, basically, CyberLife demanding Connor be given to them in exchange for agreeing to build/supply replacement parts and thirium etc for the androids post-revolution... So that's pretty much what the TV broadcast is about, a 'recall' of sorts

"They- They what?" Connor says, his voice coming out much louder than he'd intended. Nines is frowning, though not at him - steel blue eyes are still focused on the TV. Connor tears his gaze away from the screen, reaching for Hank's arm. "No," he growls, tugging so the android looks at him. "They are not taking you away, you hear me? You're part of the department, you're m- They do not get to take you. No."

"Connor," Nines says, the single word catching his attention. "It won't be that simple."

"They can't fucking have Hank," Connor spits, strengthening his grip on the android in question. _"No."_ He looks at Nines, sees the hint of resignation and looks away quickly, looks at anything, anyone else- He should talk to Fowler.

* * *

 

"I don't want to give him up any more than you do Anderson, but I can't directly disobey. If CyberLife comes in here, I won't be able to stand in their way. Understood?"

Connor nods once, turning away. He wishes the door to the Captain's office would slam behind him just this once, even though it never has. He just-

He stalks back to his desk where Nines and Hank are waiting, knowing that whatever look is on his face probably tells them everything. "Fowler can't help," is all he says as he drops down into his chair, ignoring the soft swear out of his brother's mouth.

"There isn't much the Captain _could_ do," Hank offers, his voice calm and collected even as his LED spins yellow. "If they decide they want me, there isn't much that can stop them, not really."

"We stay at the station." Connor is staring across the bullpen to the entrance, running possibilities. Hank's right, stopping CyberLife is nearly impossible, but he can't just give up the best partner he's had without a fight. "If they make it past the front desk, hell, if CyberLife steps foot in the building, you need to get yourself hidden away somewhere Hank, alright? We can delay them, Chris and Ben'll help without question. If you aren't willing to leave with them, they're gonna have to do better than just walk in with all their stupid expectations."

"Connor," Nines says, carefully soft. "Con, we can't-"

Connor rounds on his brother with a glare. "No. Stop, you don't mean that."

Nines winces, drops his gaze. "After that broadcast, it won't take much. If CyberLife gets any idea we're gonna oppose them on this, they're going to find a way to get official orders, or a legal agreement, or something. Hank isn't- He's-" Nines takes a breath and meets Connor's eyes, but only for a moment. Connor can tell, his brother doesn't like what he's saying. He doesn't want it to be true - but he's got to say it anyways. "Hank's a prototype, there's no way to contest that. His journey to deviancy was… unusual considering what we've observed, something was clearly different."

"The only way we can hope to keep him out of their hands is by force," Connor realizes. "Fowler can't help- Would Markus-?"

"Someone speaking for androids had to agree with the officials Con. I don't think Markus can help either."

"Fuck." Connor flips his coin, staring past his desk while he tries to think. If Markus can't help, then Jericho won't. The Captain won't say or do anything. He drops the quarter on his desk to shove his hands up into his hair. They might be able to barricade themselves somewhere - the station would be easiest - but eventually Fowler's gonna want them working cases, and CyberLife isn't likely to give up.

"I know, Con, I _know_ , but we-"

There's a commotion by the reception desk, and both brothers straighten to look. "Shit," Connor spits, jumping to his feet.

Half a dozen men in white-plated body armour file into the bullpen, and every officer is on edge, service guns in hands across the room as silence falls. After a long moment, one of the armoured men steps forward - and Connor's sure they can only be from CyberLife, no one but perhaps the FBI would send an assault like this to the DPD's Central Station. "NK800," the man announces, and Connor glances back over his shoulder at Hank, gesturing for him to stay and praying the damn android will do as he's told. "You must return to CyberLife Tower with me."

"This doesn't feel like the request it was understood to be," Nines calls out, shifting his feet so he's partially in front of Connor.

"Resisting is unnecessary, I have orders to collect the NK800 designation 'Hank' and-"

"Actually, _you're_ unnecessary," a new voice says, and Connor can't decide whether to laugh or cry. Chloe Kamski walks into the bullpen from the side hallway, looking every inch the CEO she isn't in a sharp white dress and heels that click with each step she takes. "The NK series is and always has been a personal project of mine," she drawls, glancing over the men CyberLife had sent, as if passing judgement. "Therefore, whoever gave you orders to collect the NK800 is very much in error." Nobody moves but Kamski herself as she continues to wander, stepping around the CyberLife contingent and offering them a brief, dark glance. She comes to a stop directly between the men and Hank, spinning on one heel to face the men. "He's mine," she hisses, "get out."

She's as still as everyone else now, several seconds passing before the lead CyberLife assaulter straightens, bringing up a tablet from a pocket and checking something very briefly. He locks eyes with Kamski, then turns neatly, stalking out of the precinct. The rest follow on his heels.

Connor gulps in a breath, sets his gun down on the desk, otherwise quiet like everyone else as the CyberLife thugs leave the building.

Moments later, Kamski speaks up, her words echoing in the still silent bullpen. "I do actually need Hank to come with me." Connor reaches out, clutching at Hank's sleeve, and she turns to look at him as if she anticipated his movement and the defense he intends to speak. "The agreement that was reached this morning still holds consequences that need to be dealt with. It's nothing terribly serious, and I fully expect him to return within the week." Hank steps forward, pulling out of Connor's shocked grasp with little effort. Kamski holds her hand out, waiting patiently while Hank crosses the bullpen. She tucks her hand into the crook of his arm, and turns toward the door, looking back over her shoulder. "Don't worry Anderson, I'll be in touch. But for now, buh-bye."

Hank walks by her side, leaving a shocked room of officers and detectives behind. He anticipates Connor's next action and sends a message of his own. _|I'll keep you updated. If I need assistance, you will know.|_ Then he mutes the Lieutenant's phone number, taking a breath and muting RK's number as well. Kamski stays quiet as she half leads him to an autonomous car of unknown make parked illegally in front of the station.

He's certain his LED is spinning yellow; they had watched the broadcast, the Andersons and him, and he had gone online immediately to access the official records, released a mere fifty-two minutes prior, to check the wording. He understands that if he isn't going into CyberLife's hands, he would be going into some else's. He understands that, as a specialized prototype and having been designed to go deviant from the start (though the broadcast hadn't dared say that outright), he doesn't really fit in the same category as the other 53 million androids across the country. He knows what's in his system, knows the functions he's equipped with, knows every line of his own code - except he's also aware there are programs he can't currently access, algorithms half-written and locked away, operations that aren't linked up properly to allow him to perform them.

"Why did you require me accompany you Miss Kamski?" he asks, long after the car has pulled away from the precinct and it is cruising down the interstate. He knows what should be done with his system and coding to resolve the inaccessible and inoperable programs, and he hopes Kamski intends to take care of those items, but he's a little… anxious, perhaps. He wants to hear it from her.

"I'm impressed that it took you this long," is all she says at first, looking out the windshield. She doesn't need to of course; the car is self-driving, and much more smoothly so than any others Hank has experienced. A mile marker passes, then another, and she turns to meet his questioning gaze. "First and foremost, I needed to remove you from the station because if, by chance, the DPD and your partner had managed to keep you from going back to CyberLife today, an attempt would have been made tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and eventually, those around you would not be sufficient to avoid your detainment. Secondly, the RK series has been a project of mine, and the NK series a spinoff if you will that CyberLife took control of before it was fully prepared for its purpose. As such, I need to take a look at your code and your systems, ensure that whatever they've done to you will neither break down nor negatively effect you in the longterm."

That is a lot of information - implicit as well as explicit - that Kamski has just shared, and Hank is quiet to process it.

"After that," she adds, as if he doesn't have enough to work through already, "I will need to complete a declaration I've been working on that covers you, and a few others, so neither CyberLife nor the government can drag you off anywhere. The agreement detailed in that broadcast this morning - I assume you've read the documents yourself? - will continue to apply until I complete the declaration and get it added to the official agreement." Hank doesn't ask how she intends to get her declaration added. He presumes it will all appear legal and 'above-board' but suspects that there will be more going into the process than what the general public will be told.

He wonders about the 'few others' Kamski mentioned, until he recalls the Elijahs he and the Lieutenant had encountered at her house. The original Elijah, the RT600, is almost certainly viewed the same way Hank himself is under the new agreement.

He isn’t left with much to think about.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoop tossed like three (3) blurby bits that occurred to me together because why not

Kamski watches Hank's movements carefully, with only a hint of emotion on her face - curiosity, perhaps. "Motor calibrations?" she asks, her tone suggesting that she knows the answer and yet is surprised.

"Yes," Hank answers, spinning the lighter again. "I also find that it is-" He pauses, clutching the lighter and stopping the movement completely as he searches for the most appropriate word. "Relaxing."

She hums, returning to her computer and leaving him to continue practicing calibrations. Motor functions are reading 99.9%, so it isn’t necessary keep flicking the lighter between his fingers, spinning it, flipping it, tossing and catching it.

It isn’t necessary, but it  _ is  _ relaxing, much like Connor’s tendency to pull out a quarter and do coin tricks when his stress levels rise. It’s a small movement, easy to do, easy to focus on, and it’s… nice.

* * *

“CyberLife didn’t think it was necessary to give me the ability to differentiate between textures.”

  ---

“CyberLife didn’t expect that I would ever want to turn the forensic analysis suite off.”

  ---

“The technicians at CyberLife thought that the perception of pain was not conducive to investigations.”

  ---

“CyberLife said that my installed UI is the most advanced-” he starts, but Chloe rolls her eyes and he stops, gazing at her a little apprehensively. About an hour and forty-seven minutes ago she began giving him a look every time that he explains why he does not have this control, or that ability, or that CyberLife made this and that decision regarding his programming. He hasn’t yet managed to decipher the expression, and he doesn’t feel like speculating.

"Oh honey,” she says after a light sigh and a pause, and Hank gets the distinct sense from her tone that whatever is coming is something she has said quite a bit. “CyberLife is good, but CyberLife came from  _ me  _ after all. I am better." Or at least, she has thought it quite a bit, and has been waiting an appropriate moment to speak it aloud, with a scoff of derision balanced with pride.

He wonders if she  _ has  _ said it aloud, to anyone other than herself and the androids who remain in her home (and him, now). He starts to run an algorithm to search for the phrase in interviews, videos, articles, but he remembers that he isn’t connected to the net right now.

His fingers twitch, and he would like to spin his lighter a few times, but he’s not supposed to do calibrations at the moment either. Not until Chloe has finished sweeping his internal diagnostic program and the dialogues that can be prompted by the program.

* * *

It’s the fourth day that Hank has been in Kamski's villa, and they’ve been progressing ahead of the proposed schedule almost since they started, so he knows that, if not today, Chloe will be finished all that she needs and wishes to do by midday tomorrow.

That feels… exciting, knowing that the end is in sight - is in reach - and that he will be returning to Detroit within thirty hours.

He feels a bit peaceful, too (peaceful doesn’t feel like quite the right word, but right now he can’t search through the Jericho Database of Emotions), because someone else who knows his programming as well as he does has confirmed that the Amanda AI is completely shut down  **and** any traces have been wiped from his system. Chloe hasn’t outright said that the Zen Garden program is gone as well, so he’ll have to check on the status of that himself, but Hank is confident that Amanda - and CyberLife - will not be there if the program does remain and he does choose to run it.

“Have you thought much about what you will do, where you will go, now that the choice is entirely your own?” Chloe’s question sounds innocently curious, and while Hank has observed enough of her behaviour over these past four days to know she is, on occasion, entirely genuine, he likes to think he knows her well enough to also know that what sounds like a simple inquiry often is not.

“Not in much depth,” he answers, cautious in his truthfulness.

She hums and turns, lifting her gaze from the tablet in her hands to stare out the window. "You may, of course, remain here if you would desire," she says, and no matter how long Hank stares at Chloe, he can't see her expression with the way she's turned to look out the window. "Elijah would be quite happy to have someone else to chat with and challenge at chess. As for the others, Orion enjoys going for walks with a companion and Venice has begun a game of creating music from simple word prompts, and I do not have the time to indulge either of them with my presence as much as I would like." She turns, finally, but Hank isn't exactly paying attention to her anymore.

He's… hell, he's actually considering her offer, now that he understands it for what it is. His LED is spinning quickly, yellow-yellow-yellow giving only the vaguest external insight as to his thoughts. Life at Kamski's villa would be easy and full of contentment, he has no doubt. An incredibly low chance of injury and therefore need for repair. Also low is chance of ~~shutdown~~ death, which is certainly a comforting thought.

When simply considering the reality of the offer, there do not seem to be any significant reasons why he should not accept. But... he has been working on building a life of his own this past week or so, a process that was progressing fairly well before Chloe had sashayed into the station to collect him.

It is when thinking about that, about the station and all that is associated with it, that reasons to say ‘no’ come to the forefront.

He has a job. He has a job that he was quite literally built for, but now that he isn't being ordered to hunt and deactivate deviants he finds that he does enjoy it, more than anything else he's done.

He has- Well, he wouldn't necessarily go so far as to call Connor and RK 'family,' though he is certainly leaning towards that, and his social relations program is so startlingly close to designating the Andersons as such that it almost scares him on occasion.

He likes Connor. He enjoys the man’s presence, more so since he deviated because now it’s easier to return in kind the sass and backtalk and sarcasm that seem a second skin to the Lieutenant. He likes the way Connor’s fidgeting fingers reach for a quarter when he’s working, when he’s thinking, when he’s attempting to control his emotions. He likes Connor’s blatant, profound love for his brother, showing it in frequent glances and a warm hand on the other’s shoulder.

Hank likes that Connor had stopped him from shooting those Tracis at the Eden Club, even though the man probably doesn’t realize that he’d obeyed for Connor himself, not for the girls. Hank hadn’t understood then, but spending hours on end with the Lieutenant had opened his eyes to  _ feelings  _ and  _ choice _ , and it had been the matter of only a few words from Markus for the Deviant Hunter to submit to what Connor had been subconsciously teaching him.

“Mm,” Chloe says, and he blinks at her, a little surprised at how lost in his own thoughts he had become. “I see.” She sounds pleased - just the same as she had been after challenging him to shoot Elijah - and Hank takes in the soft smirk on her face, the knowing look in her eyes. It doesn’t unnerve him as much as he suspects it should. “Well then, after the last update is complete, I’ll take you back to the station. Or Connor’s house - whichever you think is more likely.” She stands, grabbing her mug, and wanders away, bare feet quiet on the hardwood.

Hank blinks again, seeing the yellow of his LED stutter in his reflection. How the hell had she known what his answer would be?  _ He _ had only just come to it, how had Chloe Kamski, once again, predicted him so effortlessly?

He shakes his head as if to clear the question. Checking in with Connor might be a good course of action, now that he has confirmation that his return is waiting on very little now. Or perhaps…

Hank wonders briefly at the rationality of his idea, but an awkward smirk forms on his face. Emotion is permitted to hold just as much weight as rationality in his decisions these days. So he messages RK, not Connor, to warn about his imminent return.

He hasn’t seen pleased surprise on Connor’s face very much yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chloe unlocks the code/programs/algorithms/stuff Hank can't access, gives him more complete controls (like being able to turn the mouth-tongue analysis off) and adjusts some of his sensors (to be able to _feel_ how heckin soft Sumo and Fish are, for one) and probs more stuff that I didn't really think up, but yeah. she makes him more real, more in control.
> 
> soo I did not spend much time/energy characterizing Chloe? except I figure she wants to help, in a way, and she almost makes a game of half-figuring things out, throwing a challenge (or question or offer) and watching the reaction to confirm her suspicions and then be all self-pride and stuff because she likes getting things right

**Author's Note:**

> perhaps a little choppy, but I banged this thing out at 1am because I really just wanna get to being able to post ~chapter~ 2
> 
> Nines has more of a relationship with Chloe (as much as throwing insults across the city and complaining about each other and unnecessary banter can be a relationship) while Connor has become more distant from her, though that distance was not really planned or intended, it just happened cause sometimes that's the way things go down


End file.
